'Michelangelo of buttocks injections' given 10-year jail sentence for dancer's death from body sculpting

AP

This undated file photo provided by the Philadelphia Police Department shows Padge Gordon, also known as Padge Victoria Windslowe.

This undated file photo provided by the Philadelphia Police Department shows Padge Gordon, also known as Padge Victoria Windslowe. (AP)

Black Madam given 10-20 years for dancer's death from illegal body sculpting

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A former madam who performed illegal "body sculpting" was sentenced Thursday to 10 to 20 years in prison after the death of a dancer whose heart stopped after nearly half a gallon of silicone was injected into her buttocks.

Padge-Victoria Windslowe told jurors during her spring murder trial that clients call her "the Michelangelo of buttocks injections." But prosecutors say she had no medical training and used deadly products on vulnerable women, including fellow members of the transgender community who wanted curves.

The judge called her a narcissist who sought fame and fortune as a serial — if underground — entrepreneur, but then became childlike when things went wrong.

"I don't think you're evil," Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi told the defendant. "You don't believe that you must follow the rules of society. … It showed in the courtroom."

She said she was especially troubled that Windslowe resumed the illegal silicone injections after Claudia Aderotimi died in 2011. Aderotimi, a 20-year-old college student and competitive dancer from London, and a friend had flown to Philadelphia for "touch-ups" with Windslowe in an airport hotel room.

She arrived with the tools of her trade: a water bottle filled with liquid silicone, a red plastic cup, needles and syringes, and Krazy Glue to close the puncture wounds. But she apparently struck a vein when she injected Aderotimi. The cheap silicone soon spread to her lungs. She was dead hours later.

Windslowe went into hiding for several months, but resumed her work at "pumping parties" that left a dancer with lifelong breathing problems. Around the country, several women have died and an unknown number of others have been injured from similar injections.

"I'm sure you didn't intend to hurt (Aderotimi)," DeFino-Nastasi said. "But you came back and you did it again. … That's very troublesome. That's magical thinking."

Prosecutors complained Thursday that Windslowe has been trying to raise money in the victim's name while in prison. The judge ordered her to stop.

Windslowe, 45, once ran a transgender escort service and performed as "the Black Madam" in Gothic hip-hop videos. She said she got silicone injections when she was younger and then did them to herself and her friends.

"Being transgender, for so many years … I was imprisoned in my mind. When someone helped me with those injections, I basically felt like an ugly duckling turned into a swan," she said Thursday.

In her colorful trial testimony, she name-dropped the likes of rappers Nicki Minaj and Kanye West, along with a former Roman Catholic archbishop who she claimed had baptized her "Genevieve" after her sex change. She said clients sought her out all over the world.

"I was the best, and I don't mean that to be cocky," Windslowe told jurors.

They convicted her of third-degree murder, aggravated assault and other charges.